A school bus carrying 36 sixth-grade girls for a camping trip overturned near Kansas City, Mo., sending several students to the hospital with minor injuries, authorities said.

"Fortunately, there were only minor injuries. All of the students seem to be OK," said Technical Trooper Howard Dickinson, a spokesman for the Kansas State Police.

Fifteen of the students were taken to area hospitals to be checked for head and neck injuries "just to be safe," Dickinson said.

The bus was carrying students from Pembroke Fields School in Kansas City, Mo., several miles across the state border to Tall Oaks Conference Center in Linwood, Kan.

Photos of the initial scene painted a harrowing picture, with a bus turned over on its side in a ditch along a ramp connecting Kansas Highways 7 and 32 in Bonner Springs, Kan., and multiple ambulances treating children, some placed on stretchers.

"The bus came around a corner and dropped a rear wheel off the roadway. It swung around and turned over in a ditch," Dickinson said.

The driver was being treated for injuries at the scene. He did not appear impaired but an investigation is ongoing.

Another bus carrying male students was not involved in the accident. Parents were instructed to pick their children up at Bonner Springs High School.

School buses remain one of the safest modes of transportation. Earlier this month, the National Transportation Safety Board reported "less than 1 percent of traffic deaths involving school-aged children involves school buses."